Chemistry Laboratory

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Chemistry plays an essential role in the development of internal combustion engines, especially in chemical cleaning of the exhaust gas. So for a detailed examination on an exhaust after treatment a complex analytic is necessary.

VKA’s chemistry lab is specialized on the chemical analysis of the internal combustion engine. Special emphasis is put on the characterization of gaseous emissions and particle emissions, lubricants and component analytics and on the development of measurement technologies for special analytics around the internal combustion engine.

Gaseous emissions give a substantial conclusion on the combustion process. For this, aldehydes, different hydrocarbons and methane can be identified quantitatively. The measurement of toxic single substances like nitro-PAH or PAH, 1, 3-butadiene is possible as well.

Particle emissions emitted by the engine can be disaggregated by chemical extraction processes and thermogravimetric analytics into its components as volatiles and the partly combusted parts of oil and fuel.

For an estimation of the particle size distribution different methods are used by the VKA depending on the requirements. Using Scanning Mobility Particle Sizer (SMPS) or Berner impactor the particle number and the particle mass as function of the particle size can be estimated.

Further methods regarding structure and morphology of particles are based on an electron-microscopial procedure.

Depending on the exhaust after treatment concept different chemical mechanisms proceed in the catalysts. The lab is equipped with the latest examination methods which allow a characterization of different catalyst systems. Special examples are the online detection of sulfurous components at desulfurization of NOx storage catalysts or the determination of nitrogenous compounds within the SCR method.

An indispensable analysis is the examination of lubricants. Oils and fuels are analyzed for their chemical and physical characteristics. Therefore, oil dilution by fuel is an important parameter on the engine operation as an adequate lubrication is no more assured at high dilution rated. This may lead to engine failures.